The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-08-06

the heather mOralists-of Socrates,
Plato, Seneca. What Christ originated
was not so much the abstract principles
of right conduct as the motive and in
strument of right conduct. The phil
osophers had taken clay and fashioned
model of a perfect man, but this
MODEL had remained thing of clay-a
dead thing. Christ took this clay i'm
age and breathed into it the breath of
life. Ths vital spark which Christ sup
piled was that which we have named
faith-a consciousness of a moral gov
ernor of the world, and of the obliga-
ton of the soul to that governor. Christ.
ianity makes this government love, and
the relation of governor and governed
to be that of father and offspring.
So Christ founded morality in the
realization of God. Others had said,
"Be ye perfect" he said. ''Be ye per-
feet, as the Father is perfect" He
taught men to pray to the Father, to be
delivered from temptation, to be fed
with the bread of better life, to be
brought out of the bondage of sin into
the liberty of the children of God. No
wonder that people focked to hear this
new teacher; because he came as the
helper of men, he had something that
would lift men out of the old slavery
which they loathed, from which they
painted to be free, with the ability to
free themselves by their own effort.
These men chung to his words as men
in sinking ship cling to their life pre-
servers. Lord, to whom shall we go?'
they said, ''Thou hast the words of
eternal life." 1t is not to be wondered
at. Consider how those afflicted with
disease flock to skillful physician who
is able to give them relief. And it is
not the man who can tell us accurately
what good health is, who can theorize
most learnedly about the nature of dis
ease, to whom the afflicted flock, but to
him who can bring back the flush of
health to the wasted cheek, and cause
the disordered pulse to beat with
strong and regular current once more.
So, it is Christ to whom we go in our
moral infirmity, with our palsied pur-
poses of good, our fevered passions, our
torpid sympathies-it is him to whom
we go as the great physician of souls,
the one "who forgiveth all our iniqui-
ties, who healeth all our diseases"
II. A second element in the explana-
ton of the power of Christ's teaching
rests in the fact that he called uni
versal and living righteousness. This
call was universal. The old systems
of morality could not make their call
universal one, because they knew of no
principle broad enough to reach the
masses Of the people. and powerful
enough to raise up those too weak to
rise unaided. The Christian system
supplied this lacking principle, and ex-
tended its call to all men. $50 and
teach all nations" was the command to
the apostles. Christianity sprang out
of Judaism, but it left out all the mar
row exclusiveness of the parent relig-
ion. The Messiah for whom the Jews
looked was one who was to restore the
kingdom to Israel. After the death OF
Christ, his gospel was not carried to the
GENTLE world without a severe strug-
gle against this hide-bound exclusive
ness of the Jew. Out of this old mar
rowness of view arose the first dissen-
sion in the young church, and although
a peace was patched up among the be-
levers, the divided feeling could not be
done away with in spite of Peters Wis.,
ion and James decision that the Cen
tile converts need not be circumcised.
The feeling of the Jewish populace,
outside of the new church, is shown
pretty clearly by the fact that when
Paul addressed the mob from whose
fury he had been snatched by the arm
of the Roman law, they listened to him
while he defended himself from the
Jewish Scriptures; but when he con-
fessed that he had been preaching sal
walton to the Gentiles, they CRASHED on
him with their teeth, and drowned his
voice with clamorous cries.
The consideration of facts like these,
enables us to realize alike the divine
inspiration of call to universal right
uttered by a Jew to Jews
and given to Jews to proclaim abroad.
[ say, it enables us to understand alike
The divine inspiration of that call and,
,he power with which it was spoken.
Again, this call was not only to a
but to living righteousness
righteousness of the heart. Here, also,
Christ rose above the limitations of Ju-
iaism. The righteousness of the old
had come to be mechan-
cal thing. 1t had come to rest in con-
'ormity to an elaborate code of religious
,tiquette, tedious and servile ritual
SIN, in which the most righteous man
vas not the one who did justice, loved
mercy, and walked humbly with his
Tod, but the man who was best ac-
luainted with the details of the code